My Polio Past.

My Polio Past. - Noreen Linduska

(2015-01-12) While reading Erving Goffman's book Stigma once, I paused at one quote in particular. In itself, the quote in question was nothing special considering the other quotes and examples mentioned by the author. What caught my attention was its source: the quote belonged to a book titled My Polio Past, which translates to something like "Mi pasado con la poliomielitis".

The quote reads: "But suddenly I woke up one morning and found I couldn't stand up. I had polio; poliomyelitis was simply that. I felt like a very small child being thrown into a huge black pit; the only thing I was sure of was that I was not going to be able to get out of it without help. Apparently, the education, the classes, and the teachings of my parents, which I received for twenty-four years, made me a person capable of helping myself. I was a person like any other—normal, feisty, full of plans—and suddenly, something happened. Something happened and I became a stranger. A stranger, more to myself than to others. Not even my dreams recognized me. They didn't know what they could let me do—and when I dreamed I was going to dances or parties, there was, endlessly, a strange condition or limitation, always the same one, which was neither talked about nor mentioned. I suddenly experienced the massive mental and emotional conflict of a woman leading a double life. It was an unreal feeling that filled me with confusion, but I couldn't stop paying attention to it."

The quote served Goffman's purpose for his book, which had nothing to do with the disease itself. And that is what caught my attention: that a victim of the disease, which at the time was an epidemic, had written an account of her situation.

The author is Noreen Linduska, and the book was published in 1947. Unfortunately, there is no edition in Spanish.

The book, a personal narrative, tells the story of a young woman's period of struggle and recovery against infantile paralysis in Chicago at Michael Reese Hospital. Noreen was about to get married when she fell victim to an attack of bulbar-type poliomyelitis (which affects the head, neck, and lungs); later, the virus also affected her limbs.

From the initial days of intense pain to the long months following recovery and treatment, she recounts the daily life within the hospital walls that so often absorb the patient—the treatments (Kenny hot packs, exercises, etc.), the social life that expanded as she made progress, her own lack of interest in occupational therapy, the recovery of her religious faith, visits from the outside world, and finally, being back home. An authentic, informal, non-literary record of an experience. The social life that expanded as she made progress, her own lack of interest in occupational therapy, the recovery of religious faith, visits from the outside world, and finally the return home. The record of an authentic, informal, non-literary experience.

Linduska, N.: "I used my polio past to learn about what it was like to contract poliomyelitis from the perspective of a young girl."

In the book, she also states that the theory of therapy developed by Elizabeth Kenny falls short. Elizabeth Kenny was an Australian nurse who developed an alternative, non-scientific therapy for treating poliomyelitis.

During the 1943 Chicago polio epidemic, Noreen Linduska, who experienced two types of poliomyelitis, was a participant who later enthusiastically praised Kenny's method in her autobiography My Polio Past.

I have found this book, My Polio Past, cited in countless texts dealing with poliomyelitis, which makes me think that, as a victim's testimony during a time when no vaccine existed yet to fight it, it carries a certain importance. At least for those interested in these topics.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/noreen-linduska/my-polio-past/

http://poliovaccinenhd.weebly.com/bibliography.html

Polio and Its Aftermath: The Paralysis of Culture, written by Marc Shell (see p. 11)

Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine, written by Naomi Rogers (see p. 228)

http://www.archive.org/stream/physicaldisabili00beat/physicaldisabili00beat_djvu.txt

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy_Fairchild/publication/11778728_The_polio_narratives_dialogues_with_FDR/links/542468c10cf26120b7a74861.pdf